YouTube is nowadays a must-go destination for a lot of users daily. It houses all the latest videos and images from all their favorite content creators regarding all the topics they like. However, many users have reported that they face this ‘YouTube An error occurred, please try again later’ .
This is an annoying error that can happen to anybody. This error hampers the user experience and prevents them from viewing their favorite content. In this article, I will show you how to solve this error easily.
How To Fix YouTube An Error Occurred, Please Try Again Later?
Most of the time when a website fails the browser returns the request with what is causing the error. Thanks to this advancement it is now quite easy to figure out the reason that an error is happening. Here I will discuss the different scenarios and how you can solve ‘YouTube an error occurred’ with ease.
If you too face ‘YouTube an error occurred playback id‘ I will discuss this in the order of ease of the solutions so that you can follow them one by one and solve the issue.
# FIX 1 (Reload Cache)
This is the easiest way to resolve YouTube error. You must be wondering why.
It happens most of the time that you may leave a YouTube video to buffer in the background and work on something else. While this may seem like a good idea, this often leads to this error.
The CPU cache is constantly being filled with some other data, so the old stagnant data is deleted sometimes. So, your buffered YouTube video’s cache may have been deleted. Reload the video you wanted to watch and it should run perfectly if this was the reason the error occurred.
# FIX 2 (Restart Router)
While deleted cache may be a cause, the ‘YouTube an error occurred’ is usually caused due to a poor internet connection. Restarting your router may force reset the connection and solve the ‘an error occurred’ on YouTube.
Simply power off your router using the switch provided within your router and wait for a couple of minutes. Power on your router again and you may have solved this error.
This fix applies for mobile hotspots and portable routers as well. The main idea behind this fix is to reset the connection forcefully so that the new connection is free of error.
If this does not solve your issue, you may move on to the next method.
# FIX 3 (DNS Flush)
If forcing reset your connection does not solve your issue, you can try resetting your domain name server cache next. Flushing your DNS cache is known to solve many browser related errors. You can try this method if you do not want to engage in heavy troubleshooting methods early on.
To perform a DNS flush, follow these steps:
1) Open an elevated command prompt. Press Win + R to open the Run dialogue, type cmd, and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open a Command Prompt with administrator privileges.
2) Enter the following command to flush your DNS cache and press Enter:
ipconfig/flushdns
3) Wait for the confirmatory message and then try playing the YouTube video again.
The main idea behind this method is to clear the information stored in the DNS cache. This forces your PC to find new DNS information, thereby solving your error.
However, if flushing your DNS does not solve your error, you may try using static IP settings instead.
# FIX 4 (Change DNS Settings)
To execute this method, you need to extensively change your DNS settings in your operating system.
Usually, most internet service providers set the DNS servers automatically using the DHCP client (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol). However, you can change it to use Google’s Public DNS IP addresses if there is some issue with your ISP’s DNS settings.
To change the DNS settings, here are the steps you can follow:
1) In a Run dialogue (Win + R), type the following and press Enter to open Network Connections:
ncpa.cpl
2) In the list of available networks, select the connection (Ethernet or Wireless Network Connection) you were on that is causing the YouTube error.
3) Right-click on the above-chosen network and select Properties.
4) In the Wi-Fi properties, select Internet Protocol Version 4 (TCP/IPv4) under the Networking Click on the Properties button.
5) Inside the (TCP/IPv4) Properties screen, click on the radio button next to ‘Use the following DNS server address’.
6) Change the values as below:
Preferred DNS server: 8.8.8.8
Alternate DNS server: 8.8.4.4
7) Save the changes.
8) Open the Internet Protocol Version 6 (TCP/IPv6) Properties next similar to how you opened IPv4 settings in the step above, and click on the radio button next to ‘Use the following DNS server address’
9) Change the values as below:
Preferred DNS server: 2001.4860.4860.8888
Alternate DNS server: 2001.4860.4860.8844
10) Restart your network connection.
Now, you can try and load the previously failing YouTube video and confirm it is running smoothly.
# FIX 5 (Clear Browser Cache)
Your browser will preload some files in order to save the time taken to open a website. But sometimes this may result in the saved cache to get corrupted, or some files may be deleted to save space. If this is the case, you may be getting “YouTube an error has occurred” message.
To clear the badly cached data, you need to remove all the cache and browsing data as it is very difficult to pinpoint which sector is cached badly.
To clear browsing data in Chrome, you can use the shortcut key Ctrl + Shift + Delete to open the browsing data settings page. Here delete all the browsing data and restart your browser. Your video should load fine.
In Firefox, you can clear site-specific browsing data. To do so, open History settings page (Ctrl + H) and find any YouTube link. Right–click on it and select Forget about this site. Restart your browser and you should be able to play YouTube videos normally again.
Note: this will cause a loss in saved browsing data, you will need to log in again into websites.
# FIX 6 (Disable Flash)
The Shockwave flash settings also sometimes cause this error and leave the YouTube videos unplayable.
To block Flash from running, visit the following website and set the toggle to OFF next to ‘Block sites from running flash’.
chrome://settings/content/flash
Conclusion
YouTube is a very popular website among users and a lot of people visit regularly for consuming a variety of content. However, ‘YouTube An error occurred, please try again’ error can be annoying as it stops the users from viewing the videos. Now you know how to solve this error using the steps given above. Comment below for a further discussion on the issue and tell us which method helped you solve the error.
